John Lawrence Cardy FRS (born 19 March 1947, England)Guggenheim Foundation: Annual Report 1985. is a British- American theoretical

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He is best known for his work in theoretical

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the s ...

and statistical mechanics, and in particular for research on critical phenomena and

two-dimensional conformal field theory A two-dimensional conformal field theory is a quantum field theory on a Euclidean two-dimensional space, that is invariant under local conformal transformations. In contrast to other types of conformal field theories, two-dimensional conformal ...

. He was an undergraduate and postgraduate student at Downing College,

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, before moving to the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the ...

, where he joined the faculty in 1977. In 1993, he moved to the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

, where until 2014 he was a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of All Souls College (now Emeritus) and a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

in the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics. He currently holds a Visiting Professorship at the

. He was elected as a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematic ...

in 1991, received the Dirac Medal of the IoP in 2000, was awarded the

Lars Onsager Prize The Lars Onsager Prize is a prize in theoretical statistical physics awarded annually by the American Physical Society. Prize recipients receive a medal, certificate, and $10,000. It was established in 1993 by Drs. Russell and Marian Donnelly in ...

by the

APS APS or Aps or aps or similar may refer to: Education * Abbottabad Public School * Adarsh Public School, a public school in New Delhi, India * Alamogordo Public Schools * Albuquerque Public Schools, New Mexico, US school district * Allendale Publ ...

in 2004, the Boltzmann Medal by IUPAP in 2010, and the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 2011. He is most known for his contributions to conformal field theory. The Cardy formula for black hole entropy, the Cardy formula in percolation theory,arXiv:hep-th/9111026v1
and the Cardy conditions in boundary conformal field theory are named after him.

Selected works

*
Scaling and renormalization in statistical physics
'. Cambridge University Press, 1996 * with

Krzysztof Gawędzki Krzysztof Gawędzki (Polish pronunciation: ; born 2 July 1947 – died 21 January 2022) was a Polish mathematical physicist, a graduate of the University of Warsaw and professor at the École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS de Lyon). He was pri ...

, Gregory Falkovich:
Non equilibrium statistical mechanics and turbulence
'. London Mathematical Society Lecture notes, Cambridge University Press, 2008 * ''Conformal Invariance and Statistical Mechanics''. in Les Houches Lectures, vol. 49, 1988 * as editor: ''Finite Size Scaling''. Elsevier 1988
Cardy ''Conformal Invariance in Percolation, Self-Avoiding Walks and Related Problems'', 2002

Cardy ''Conformal field theory and statistical mechanics'', Les Houches Lectures 2008

Cardy, Pasquale Calabrese ''Entanglement entropy and conformal field theory'', J. Phys. A, 42, 2009

Cardy ''Entanglement entropy in extended quantum systems'', 2007

References

External links

John Cardy's homepage
Living people British physicists American physicists Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Fellows of Downing College, Cambridge Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Fellows of the Royal Society 1947 births {{UK-physicist-stub